Why Some State Incentives for Business Work—And Others Don'tA $46 million Connecticut deal with a pharmaceutical company meant spending $230,000 per new job.

By TOM FOLEY AND BEN ZIMMER

Every state does it, to one degree or another: pays incentives to private companies to keep jobs in-state. Supporters say this is necessary for job creation, detractors call it corporate welfare, and nationwide it costs more than $80 billion a year. So when are such incentives sound economic policy, and when do they merely serve certain firms, lobbyists and politicians?

Jobs created with incentives are good when they are net contributors to the economy. They are bad—handouts, effectively—when the incentives cost the state more than the jobs contribute back to the economy.

The Connecticut Policy Institute has identified three criteria for determining when job incentives go from good to bad:

• Does the total cost of the incentive exceed the amount that would be paid back through incremental tax revenues over 10 years? In most states, this threshold is crossed when the total cost of the incentive rises above 50% of the annual compensation for jobs kept or created.

• Do the incentives provide only for jobs that would not otherwise come to the state, or would otherwise leave?

• Do the incentives promote jobs that will remain viable and stay in-state after the incentives expire?

Some state incentive programs meet these criteria. In October 2012, Kentucky offered Berry Plastics $10 million to refurbish and reopen a manufacturing plant in Madisonville, about 150 miles southwest of Louisville. Berry committed to bring 400 jobs to Kentucky, a reasonable rate of $25,000 per job. The plant had closed in 2011 because the products it produced could be more competitively produced elsewhere. But the refurbished plant will produce a different product that can be competitively produced in Kentucky.

Most incentive programs aren't so effective. In 2011, Connecticut agreed to pay The Jackson Laboratory, a genetics research institute, $300 million in exchange for a promise to bring 300 new jobs to Connecticut. That cost a whopping $1 million per job. The same year, Connecticut paid Alexion Pharmaceuticals $46 million to commit to hiring 200 new employees. At $230,000 per job, this still far exceeds the threshold for a sound investment in the state's economy.

In 2007, Michigan announced a film-industry incentive program that would reimburse 50% of production costs spent in the state. The program brought hundreds of jobs to Michigan, according to local records, but when the incentives expired in 2011 the movie producers relocated and the jobs disappeared.

Incentive programs can be problematic even when not targeted at particular companies or industries. Oklahoma's Small Business Capital Formation Incentive Act provides a 20% tax credit for investments in Oklahoma small businesses. In 2009, reported the Oklahoma Tax Commission, the program cost the state $17 million but generated only 21 new jobs.

Connecticut recently passed a Job Expansion Tax Credit awarding businesses a subsidy of up to $32,000 per employee for every new hire between Jan. 1, 2012 and Jan. 1, 2014. This subsidy will induce businesses to hire some employees they otherwise wouldn't, but much of the cost will be wasted paying companies for hires they would have made anyway. Meanwhile, there is no guarantee that any of the new employees will still have jobs once the subsidy expires three years after their date of hire.

If many job incentives are poor public investments, why do states get away with offering them? Because good policy and good politics are often at odds. Politicians want to be re-elected, and a solid record on nominal job growth—regardless of the cost—tends to be more important to officials' re-election prospects than is the prudent management of public funds. That is one reason most such programs are structured to yield job creation immediately while deferring the cost of the incentive into the future—preferably when other politicians will be in office.

State competition for jobs should be a good thing that promotes fiscal stability, low tax rates, dynamic labor markets, balanced regulatory environments and responsible investment in infrastructure and human capital. These—and not one-time tax breaks—are the factors that are most likely to attract employers and drive good jobs policy.

Mr. Foley, the 2010 Republican nominee for governor of Connecticut, is founder of the Connecticut Policy Institute, of which Mr. Zimmer is executive director.

I think it's a good article and can also be extrapolated to cities. Some of the comments made good points, too, like how the incentives are typically always geared towards big companies (who bring in the 200-300 jobs), while the small employer essentially supports it through their taxes.

I am not totally against tax subsidies to bring in new business to an area. Does it really cost a municipality to bring in jobs because they are giving tax breaks to a company to set up shop there? To say that it cost $XXX per job via tax breaks seems disengenious to me. Doesn't make sense to say that something cost them when they didn't have the tax revenue in the first place, and probably wouldn't have landed the jobs in the area without the tax subsidies. I could be misunderstanding how the whole thing works though.

What I don't like about it is that this practice seems inorganic to me, which is why it doesn't always seem to pay off. How about investing some of those tax subsidies in already established small to medium businesses so they can expand their operations therefore stimulating the local economy with jobs, increased tax revenue (based on increased productivity), and improvements in the current municipal infrastructure. Seems like it could raise the standard of living and employment levels for the community without the huge risk of a larger company pulling out after a couple of years.

Like I said, I may not be seeing the whole picture. Article gave me something to think about.

Malloy's administration is offering Jackson, a Bar Harbor, Maine-based leader in so-called personalized medicine, a $192 million forgivable loan and $99 million in grants supporting genetic research. Jackson will use the subsidies to construct a 170,000-square-foot development on the grounds of the health center, which it will own.

In return, Jackson is supposed to create 300 jobs in 10 years. The land will be leased to Jackson and be deeded to the company when it creates 600 jobs, which is expected in two decades.

The state Department of Economic and Community Development maintains the lab's presence will ultimately bring 6,600 direct and indirect jobs to Connecticut.

The 'forgivable loan' part would be interesting to know what the terms are. Is it forgiven if they stay there for 10 years and employ at least 300 people during that time, as they agreed? I would think it would be something along those lines.